How to Brand Your Private Labels SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of How to Brand Your Private Labels
Private labels have become ever-more important and are slowly turning into brands of their own. Retailers increasingly offer three-level 'good, better, best' private-label programs that include economy, standard, and premium private-label tier goods. For each of these tiers, retailers must decide under what name to brand their private label. They can either assign their store banner name to a private-label tier or go for a unique brand name that is separate from the retailer banner. The purpose of this article is to outline the advantages and limitations of these two branding strategies: store-banner branding versus stand-alone branding. Herein, we also provide a series of recommendations regarding when to use each brand strategy, based on characteristics of the retailer and the environment in which it operates.
Authors :: Inge Geyskens, Kristopher O. Keller, Marnik Dekimpe, Koen de Jong
Swot Analysis of "How to Brand Your Private Labels" written by Inge Geyskens, Kristopher O. Keller, Marnik Dekimpe, Koen de Jong includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Banner Label facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in How to Brand Your Private Labels case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Research & development, Strategy and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the How to Brand Your Private Labels casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of How to Brand Your Private Labels
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in How to Brand Your Private Labels case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Banner Label, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Banner Label operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of How to Brand Your Private Labels can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in How to Brand Your Private Labels case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Banner Label
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Banner Label
Strengths How to Brand Your Private Labels | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Banner Label in How to Brand Your Private Labels Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Banner Label is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the How to Brand Your Private Labels are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Banner Label in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Banner Label
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Banner Label does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Banner Label has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in How to Brand Your Private Labels HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Banner Label is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Inge Geyskens, Kristopher O. Keller, Marnik Dekimpe, Koen de Jong can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Diverse revenue streams
– Banner Label is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in How to Brand Your Private Labels case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
High brand equity
– Banner Label has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Banner Label to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Banner Label has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Banner Label has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Innovation driven organization
– Banner Label is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in How to Brand Your Private Labels Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Banner Label has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in How to Brand Your Private Labels Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Banner Label has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Banner Label digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Banner Label has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses How to Brand Your Private Labels | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of How to Brand Your Private Labels are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Banner Label needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Banner Label is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study How to Brand Your Private Labels can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study How to Brand Your Private Labels, in the dynamic environment Banner Label has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Banner Label has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Banner Label has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Banner Label even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Banner Label has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study How to Brand Your Private Labels, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study How to Brand Your Private Labels has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Banner Label 's lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study How to Brand Your Private Labels, is just above the industry average. Banner Label needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Lack of clear differentiation of Banner Label products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Banner Label needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Banner Label has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - How to Brand Your Private Labels should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As How to Brand Your Private Labels HBR case study mentions - Banner Label takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Opportunities How to Brand Your Private Labels | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study How to Brand Your Private Labels are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Banner Label has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study How to Brand Your Private Labels - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Banner Label to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Banner Label to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Banner Label to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Banner Label to increase its market reach. Banner Label will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Banner Label to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Banner Label in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Banner Label can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Banner Label can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Loyalty marketing
– Banner Label has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Banner Label to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Banner Label can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, How to Brand Your Private Labels, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Banner Label can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Banner Label can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Banner Label can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Threats How to Brand Your Private Labels External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study How to Brand Your Private Labels are -
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Banner Label needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Banner Label business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing wage structure of Banner Label
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Banner Label.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Banner Label high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Regulatory challenges
– Banner Label needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Banner Label in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Environmental challenges
– Banner Label needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Banner Label can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Banner Label is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Banner Label with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Banner Label.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Banner Label will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of How to Brand Your Private Labels Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study How to Brand Your Private Labels needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study How to Brand Your Private Labels is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study How to Brand Your Private Labels is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of How to Brand Your Private Labels is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Banner Label needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.